NEW: Riviera official serving 3-week suspension after insurance debacle

Palm Beach Post (FL)

Jan. 25--RIVIERA BEACH -- The city council has upheld an unpaid three-week suspension for the Human Resources Department official blamed for failing to take departing employees off the city's health insurance plan, an oversight that cost the city $1.1 million in unnecessary premiums.

Risk Manager Marie Sullin didn't attend the Jan. 16 council meeting to defend herself and could not be reached for comment. In a previous meeting she said the lapse occurred after retirements and other departures left her as the only person in the four- or five-person department.

Mayor Thomas Masters suspended Sullin and the council voted unanimously to ratify the suspension, which took effect Jan. 11, through Feb. 1. The matter remains under a forensic audit by the Palm Beach County Office of Inspector General.

In making his case to the council, Thomas played video of the meeting last summer where Sullin responded to questions about the failure to take retired, resigned and, in one case dead, persons off the insurance roster.

"She realized it was her responsibility to make sure this didn't happen," Masters said. She "said, basically, she was overwhelmed and had a lot of other things going on and duties and responsibilities and they were sending stuff out and emailing.... But at the end of the day, it was the risk manager that certainly had responsibility here," the mayor said. "In the corporate world, over $1 million, we wouldn't be talking about suspension. Someone would have been fired months ago."

Because the issue came to light last summer, insurer Aetna has returned $440,000 of the estimated $1.1 million in over-payments, made between 2014 and 2017.

The Palm Beach Post reported July 13 that the city failed to remove at least 77 former employees from its health insurance rolls, some of whom hadn't worked for the city for more than four years. One was dead.

Emails obtained through public information requests showed the city paid for coverage for 51 "terminated or inactive" employees, 16 ineligible retirees, at least one employee whose name was duplicated and at least nine who worked not for the city but for its Community Redevelopment Agency. The CRA is supposed to pay its own bills, through separate taxes levied on property owners in redevelopment areas.

In addition to the ex-employees, at least 119 family members were covered.

Sullin, who earns $73,250, noted in the video that when the Human Resources director retired in October 2014, she was named interim risk manager, taking on additional responsibilities of liability claims management, deferred compensation, worker's comp, disability management, drug-testing, pre-employment medical testing and coordination of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade, among other duties.

The city insurance technician retired in April 2016 and a new one wasn't hired until three months later, Sullin said. The department filled its vacant slot for a safety officer in October 2016, and in July 2017 hired benefits administrator, finally bringing the department up to its full complement of four employees, she said. That's when the discrepancies were uncovered, Sullin said.

Employee terminations used to be handled manually, she said. "We believe this may have caused the discrepancies." As a result, the work is now done by an automated process, reducing errors, she said.

Despite the explanation, Masters said he held Sullin, as risk manager, responsible. If others also share responsibility, that might come out in the Inspector General report and the city can take further action then, he said.

City Councilman Terence Davis recommended that, instead of three weeks without pay, Sullin be suspended with pay indefinitely, pending the outcome of the Inspector General report.

But Masters said Inspector General John Carey advised him that cities shouldn't wait for his office's reports to be complete to take administrative or disciplinary action. The insurance audit could take months, Masters added.

Masters said that out of sympathy for Sullin he had waited until after the holidays to act but that it shouldn't wait longer. He decided on the length of the suspension at his discretion of "the time for the crime," he said.

From what he could see, and from her statements to the council, Masters said, "she was overwhelmed and signed off on things and was not really, to my mind, paying attention."

The council vote was unanimous.

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